The present invention relates to a transportation arrangement system, more particularly relates to a transportation arrangement system including a plurality of physical distribution centers for loading and unloading various types of cargoes and a plurality of transportation bases for transporting the cargoes among these plurality of physical distribution centers by a plurality of vehicles, and to a transportation arrangement apparatus for planning an optimum transportation arrangement plan in that transportation arrangement system.
In the current physical distribution field, which transports cargoes in accordance with instructions from the shippers, there are the following problems.
Namely,  less than 1 greater than  the cargo items being transported have been increasing and becoming more complicated along with the diversification of consumer needs and the intensifying competition among businesses and therefore the physical distribution has become more inefficient.  less than 2 greater than  The roads are becoming increasingly congested and consequently it is not easy to realize a delivery of cargoes in a manner precisely meeting with the customers"" wishes due to traffic jams etc.  less than 3 greater than  Further, in some countries, the physical distribution field is made up of a large number of small businessesxe2x80x94which makes it vulnerable when attempting to streamline it as an important industry forming a key part of the economic infrastructure.  less than 4 greater than  In addition, at present, carriers draw up their own transportation plans independently for respective orders received from shippers and transport the cargoes based on the same. As a result of the above, there are many problems when trying to significantly increase the efficiency of physical distribution.  less than S greater than  Further, there are strong pressures for reduction of the CO2, NOx, and the like emitted from the huge number of trucks in view of global environmental problems.
The present invention describes a transportation arrangement system for solving these various problems.
In the conventional physical distribution field, the carriers draw up their own transportation plans independently with respect to respective orders received from the shippers and transport the cargoes based on the same. For this reason, individual transportation companies have each tried to increase the efficiency of their physical distribution within their own carriers, for example, tried to shorten the transportation hours and reduce the number of vehicles used.
The main problem in transportation being tackled by the individual carriers had boiled down to xe2x80x9cshortening of the transportation hours and improvement of the accuracy of the transportation schedulexe2x80x9d in consideration of the increase and greater complexity of the cargoes being transported and the traffic conditions on the roads. Namely, in previous transportation arrangement systems, various efforts were made to more efficiently calculate the optimum and shortest route from the location where a cargo was loaded to the location where the cargo was to be delivered. Many proposals have been made for this purpose.
Further, turning to the transportation arrangement apparatusxe2x80x94a main component of the above transportation arrangement systemxe2x80x94, when drawing up a transportation arrangement plan, the apparatus must produce a plan that will achieve the prescribed target (for example, minimization of the total number of vehicles required) while satisfying restraint conditions. The operation for this purpose corresponds to finding a solution of an optimization problem having restraint conditions. This optimization problem is one where, by nature, the problem solving usually becomes dramatically more difficult, that is, an enormous amount of time is required for finding the solution, along with an increase in the size of the problem concerned (for example, the number of orders for transportation and the number of orders for delivery). Efforts are being made, for example, as proposed below, in order to solve this.
First, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 8-115495 discloses to divide the destinations of cargoes requested to be transported into a plurality of areas and determine the route for every area, while excluding deliveries spanning several adjoining areas from consideration, and thereby reduce the size of the above problem.
Next, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2-112100 discloses to achieve a predetermined objective, for example, the objective of minimizing the total number of vehicles required, by simultaneously processing a xe2x80x9cphasexe2x80x9d, for problem solving for the optimization of this objective and a xe2x80x9cphasexe2x80x9d for problem solving for satisfying the restraint condition, for example, the designated operating hours in an operating day, so as to solve the optimization problem having a restraint condition.
While individual carriers have therefore been trying to improve the efficiency of physical distribution on their own within the bounds of their carriers, however, at the current time no major improvement in efficiency of physical distribution has been realized and the above problems in the physical distribution field have not been solved. For this reason, the issue to be tackled is not limited to the transportation hours such as the xe2x80x9cshortening of the transportation hours and the improvement of the accuracy of the transportation schedulexe2x80x9d, but further includes how to deal with the daily fluctuations in the variety and volume of cargoes handled, of course, and also how to deal with changes in the physical distribution network so as to streamline the physical distribution and, as a result, contribute to the solution of environmental problems as well.
In consideration with such a situation, the present inventors engaged in an intensive study on the how to reduce the total number of vehicles used in actual daily operations and as a result perfected a transportation arrangement system for a physical distribution field comprising a plurality of shippers, a plurality of physical distribution centers for loading and unloading a plurality of cargoes and a plurality of transportation bases for transporting the plurality of cargoes among the physical distribution centers by a plurality of vehicles, which minimizes the total number of vehicles used by providing a transportation arrangement center for drawing up an operations plan for a plurality of vehicles in response to transportation orders from a plurality of shippers to integrate the transportation arrangement plans which the carriers have individually drawn up so far.
Further, looking at the transportation arrangement apparatus, the above related art (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 8-115495 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2-112100) suffered from the following two problems.
 less than 1 greater than  Obstacles to Optimization
When dividing destinations into a plurality of areas as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 8-115495, there is the side effect that for example it is difficult to handle deliveries bridging adjoining areas. This is the factor obstructing optimization.
Namely, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 8-115495 does mention that adjoining areas should swap delivery requests, but since delivery orders are only swapped between adjoining areas, there is still the problem that the optimization is greatly obstructed.
 less than 2 greater than  Complexity of System
On the other hand, with processing for problem solving for optimization at the same time as problem solving for satisfying the restraint conditions as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2-112100, there is the problem that it is not possible to flexibly handle changes in the restraint conditions That is, there is the problem that when there is a change in for example the above designated operating hours and it becomes necessary to add or delete the above restraint condition along with this change, there is somewhat an effect on the phase for the problem solving for the above optimization as well and therefore the total cost required for the change of the system is increased.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a transportation arrangement system which enables the total number of vehicles dispatched in an entire physical distribution field to be reduced and as a result, due to the reduction in the number of operating vehicles, not only help streamline the physical distribution, but also contribute to solving problems such as the environmental problem of the need to reduce the amount of CO2, NOx, and other emissions.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a transportation arrangement apparatus capable of planning and executing an optimum transportation arrangement plan while satisfying the requirements for optimization and system maintenance without requiring an enormous amount of time for the problem solvingxe2x80x94which usually becomes dramatically more difficult along with an increase in the size of the problem being dealt with (for example, the number of transportation orders).
To attain the above objects, according to the present invention, a transportation arrangement center (5) for drawing up an operations plan is set up between shippers (4) and both physical distribution centers (1) and transportation bases (2). The transportation arrangement center (5) is provided with a master data managing means (6) for managing cargo item data, physical distribution center data, and vehicle and garage data concerning vehicles and garages managed by the transportation bases (2) and with a route making means (7) for making routes, based on the data of the cargo items, physical distribution centers, vehicles and garages, taking into consideration also priority vehicles. The route making means (7) makes an efficient route satisfying the transportation orders from the shipper and the restraint conditions in operations, minimizing the number of vehicles dispatched, and selecting the optimum transportation bases.